


5 Times an Avenger helped Matt Murdock

by Fitz



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Except Natasha, Gen, She's always awesome, The Avengers mean well, but sometimes Matt would rather they not help
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-11 16:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13528290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fitz/pseuds/Fitz
Summary: ...and one time he returned the favor.Yet another Matt Murdock meets the Avengers story.





	1. Captain America

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: MCU. The whole story spans from the first Avengers movie and pre-season 1 Daredevil, through to pre-Age of Ultron and post season 1 Daredevil. (And... maybe a little TWT for Avengers... because I can.)
> 
> POV: Matt Murdock
> 
> I had fun writing this. Hopefully it's as enjoyable to read.

There were aliens falling from the sky, or so he was told. All he could hear was thumping, explosions, and the whirring of foreign machinery—a lot of screaming. Something big was moving overhead. It thrummed through his very core, making him think of water and swimming and the horror of the public pools where the pressure of dozens of other bodies moving through the water around him had been almost too much to bear.

“Matt, are you _crazy?_ ” Foggy’s voice was a comfort in the insanity around them.

He was not, in fact, crazy. Perhaps he looked that way to Foggy. Well, he probably looked that way to everyone. They were packed into this place like oversized sardines smelling of stress-sweat.

Matt stood at the edge, just beside the window, with his ear pressed to the wall.

They were afraid to get too close to the window. Once they got the gawking out of their system, someone had pointed out how visible they were. Everyone had moved toward the interior, almost as one. It had been alarming, the sudden crush of people. Body heat and sweat and pounding hearts and stifled whimpers and salt—someone was crying—the hissing of fearful whispering. Foggy had not been pleased with him when he shoved his way free of the press of the crowd with near violent intent.

He was far enough from the window that he was not in a direct line of sight. If the aliens came close enough to see him, they would all be in trouble anyway. Confined as they were, they had nowhere to run, no place to hide. Those guns (lasers? Pressure rifles? There was the sound of unbelievable power behind them) would tear through their ranks like a gunman through a crowded shopping mall.

It was not as though he needed to press his ear to the wall to know what was happening outside. However, when he reacted to a sound he should not be able to hear, it was all that much more plausible if everyone thought he was expanding his senses by doing something this ridiculous. Not that he knew what he would do if it came right down to it. From what he could tell, the aliens were far more advanced, technologically speaking. His fists might not be enough against that kind of firepower when so many hostages were at stake.

Foggy’s life was at stake.

Upstairs, a window shattered. Footsteps overhead.

Matt cringed at the sound of a hundred panicked voices, whispering, whimpering, crying, and hissing. Heartbeats raced. Somewhere in the crowd, someone was hyperventilating.

The cries grew louder and more pronounced a moment later. Matt jumped when Foggy’s hand closed around his arm. His friend—his stupidly brave friend—dragged him away from the wall and behind the dubious shelter of a fallen table where a half dozen other people were already pressed together. The stink of fear and sweat was overpowering, and Matt found himself instinctively struggling to get away, resisting Foggy’s pull, his own breathing accelerating into unhappy gasping.

Above, the aliens smelled foreign and impossible. Matt’s nose had never met the like. It was worse than the smell of the people whose hands were everywhere, _helping_ Foggy keep him down and quiet.

Matt might feel bad later, but at the moment he had no problem with putting his elbow in the chest of the guy who thought it would be a good idea to put a hand over his mouth. The action ended that particular restraint immediately. Unable to do much about the rest—there were at least four different peoples’ hands upon him—Matt twisted and wrapped himself around Foggy. If anything, he could protect Foggy. They would have to go through him to get to this man.

Foggy misinterpreted, naturally. So did everyone else. At least it had the added benefit of removing most of the restraining hands from him. Foggy became an octopus, hugging Matt with all his might, and Matt used his own weight to drag him down and into the shadows of the balcony.

Some woman was rubbing his back. Matt did not want to risk drawing attention to himself and Foggy by telling her to stop.

It took a tremendous amount of effort to focus past the slamming of Foggy’s heartbeat to find the aliens above them. They were big, heavy, but moved with ease. A metallic tang to the air suggested armor, while the whir of mechanics with each movement suggested either the armor was technologically advanced, or they themselves were.

They were not attacking outright. They hovered, making threatening snarls, but there was no shooting. One of them was standing quieter than the others, which was worrisome. As was the persistent beeping.

Another window broke. Someone in the crowd yelped.

“ _Oh, my god!_ ”

A hum of whispers, caught in terror and excitement rippled through the group. It took a moment for Matt to catch a coherent statement above the impact sounds of someone fighting overhead.

“It’s _Captain America!_ ”

Foggy was trying to see. Matt resisted. He knew what was happening up there, and whoever was fighting the creatures was doing well but not great. He knocked one out, kicked another. The idiot was throwing one of them to the first floor.

The impact sent small shockwaves rippling through the tiles.

Foggy gasped. His arms tightened around Matt’s back, restricting his breathing.

Then the world was a maelstrom of heat and ringing silence and debris.

* * *

It was so much later that Matt woke. Not to say he had been unconscious. He had simply been going through the motions, letting people push and pull him where they may, unable to hear their orders or platitudes.

His ears popped, and the world came back into focus. He was back on the street, walking slowly with the crowd of tired, frightened, relieved people. Foggy was to his left, arm hooked through Matt’s. Some stranger was on his right, gripping his arm gently, fingers tightening each time Matt stumbled.

“Where are we?” Matt asked, the first thing he had spoken since being pulled from that hellhole in Midtown.

“We, my friend, are walking back to Columbia,” Foggy answered. “They’re probably going to tell us to pack up and go home for a week while FEMA comes through and does their thing.”

“What happened?”

“Aliens attacked,” Foggy narrated, “Superheroes came. Captain America kicked the crap out of a few in the bank before one of the aliens set off an explosion. The next time I get the bright idea to turn a trip to the bank into a field trip to see Stark Tower, remind me of the glory that is the ATM. Curb.”

It took taking a hard step off the aforementioned curb to realize why Foggy had broken his own story to utter the incongruent word. Even worse was the way the guy holding his right arm braced him, throwing off his usual balance and making it that much more difficult to regain his footing. He shook free of the stranger’s hold, waving an apologetic hand in thanks and turning his attention back to Foggy’s explanation.

“ _You_ freaked out,” Foggy continued once they were stable. “It took three of us to get you off the ground and out of the bank. How are your ears?

“Ringing,” Matt admitted. “Captain America? Didn’t he die back in the forties?”

“Color me surprised,” Foggy shrugged. “Might have just been some guy dressed as him. Either way, he saved us. Another curb. Oh, and Iron Man flew a nuke into a wormhole and killed all the aliens. At least, that’s what everyone is saying. Pretty amazing, right?”

Matt nodded faintly, adding a belated, “Right.” He tightened his grip on Foggy’s arm. He was probably walking closer than was truly necessary, but no one seemed to notice or mind. It was difficult to form a coherent thought beyond _aliens falling from the sky_.

“Captain America,” Matt said again.

Foggy laughed, a little too high, a little too loud.

“Captain America,” he agreed.

 


	2. Hawkeye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt totally had that guy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this point forward I will be posting any warnings at the end of each chapter. (Most of the warnings are minor enough that I did not see a need to put them in the tags, especially since a lot of them are not integral to the story.) While I certainly do not lack for empathy, I realize I can be insensitive when it comes to this type of thing. So if I miss something, feel free to tell me, and I will try to accommodate.
> 
> That said, thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments. Hopefully the story continues to be entertaining.

Nighttime wandering in Hell’s Kitchen was generally a bad idea. As the dark took over and the lights failed to push back the deepest of shadows, the smart took to their homes or the safety of large groups. Those unfortunate enough to have night jobs tried to jump from door to taxi and taxi to home. When they could not afford or find a cab, they kept to the lit streets, moved quickly, and stayed alert.

Pity the women, the old, and disabled who dared venture into the night. The streets were not kind.

Matt never considered himself disabled in the strictest sense of the word. True, he was blind. He wore sunglasses regardless of the time of day and walked with a white stick. But the glasses were for the seeing world, as was the stick. Without the stick, in daylight hours, he could fool anyone into thinking he was as normal as could be.

He didn’t.

But he could.

At night, it was more of a challenge. Only assholes and blind men wore sunglasses at night. Without the glasses, there was no disguising the way his eyes could not quite track.

Blind men were a tempting sight to muggers. How much easier of a target could one find than a man who could not see you coming?

Matt could see them coming, in a manner of speaking. He knew when there was a man behind him, and that the man smelled of sweat and unwashed clothing and metal and gunpowder. He could hear the heavy footfalls of rapid approach, and he knew that _click_ _shink_ was the sound of a switchblade.

Already he was preparing to step to the side, to sweep his cane out— _Oh, my god, are you okay? I didn’t see you there_ —and make the man know that, blind or not, Matt was not an easy target.

A second set of footsteps joined the would-be mugger’s, this one moving faster. The body was heavier than the first, but this was someone who was accustomed to sprinting and moving quickly around obstacles. Matt didn’t like the sound of that runner. That runner was not someone he would be able to avoid as easily.

This brought him to a second, less savory option: he was going to have to let the first man mug him. The second guy was going to do something, possibly to Matt, and he had little doubt of its violence.

He stopped, cocked his head like he was puzzled, and was completely unsurprised by the hand which caught his arm. The grip in his suit jacket tightened and hauled back. Matt could slip the hold without much difficulty, but he had committed. He let the man drag him to the side and slam him back into the brick side of the building.

“H-hey!” Admittedly, he was not a great actor. He tried to lie by omission rather than straight up untruths. Foggy could tell anyone his laughable attempts at lying. Still, while he did not quite manage the sound of fear, he did have enough irritation in him to project offense. “What—”

The knife at his throat was sharp and convinced him that silence might be the better option. His reflexive swallow caused the blade to nick the skin, the sharp tang of copper filling the air even as the smallest traces of blood rose to the surface. Matt gripped his cane tightly in effort not to grab for the weak spot at the man’s wrist, to break that grip.

“Where’s your wallet?” The man smelled worse up close. Matt breathed out slowly through his nose, trying to clear the puff of stale coffee and whiskey. Mold. Teeth which had not seen the bristles of a toothbrush in at least a week.

“My—it’s in my pocket— _hey!_ ” At this point, he was just disgusted by being felt up by the man’s grubby hands. “Watch it!”

“Yeah, man. _Watch it!_ ”

The other man was on them so fast Daredevil would have had a difficult time keeping up. As it was, he did not have to try. The words were enough to loosen the tension in his gut.

He would not concede to having his throat sliced open, however. Matt got his hand up, forearm bracing hard into the mugger’s wrist and shoving back, even as the second man grabbed the first and twisted. The ironic turning of the tables was entertaining. Matt heard the knife hit the sidewalk and the mugger hit the wall, just as he had been thrown a moment ago.

“Jesus Christ!” the mugger yelped. “Please! I wasn’t going to hurt him!”

“Yeah, because throwing a blind man around isn’t just a dick move to start!” the second man snarled. “Get the hell out of here, asshole. If I see you around again, I won’t be so forgiving.”

“I’m s-sorry!”

“Seriously, don’t try my patience. Get out of my sight, or I’ll beat you to hell right here, right now.”

Ammonia filled the air, potent and thick. The mugger had pissed himself. The man whimpered and took off running, his steps a bit awkward and bowlegged.

Matt pushed away from the wall and straightened his jacket, wrinkling his nose at the lingering scent from where the mugger had touched him.

“Hey, buddy. You okay?”

He touched his glasses, adjusting them from where they had tried to slide down his nose, and tilted his head toward the newcomer’s voice.

“Fine. Thank you.”

“You shouldn’t be walking alone in a neighborhood like this.”

“You are,” Matt pointed out mildly.

He should not have been sensitive about this. For the most part he was not. He knew how vulnerable the vast majority of blind people were on their own. He was aware of his own capabilities and how they far outstripped even the average sighted person. On the other hand, if someone else was going to dance around his blindness like that, he had no problem making them uncomfortable in return.

“Yeah, but I’m not…”

There was a high-pitched whine coming from the guy. Matt had not noticed it in his focus on the more important noises, but he heard it now. He tracked the sound to the man’s head. The sides. His ears.

Hearing aids.

Now Matt knew the man was a dick.

He brought forth a smile. It was his lawyer smile. He could already hear Foggy’s shudder and groan. Foggy would be dragging him away at this point, if only to spare himself having to witness Matt cutting down the poor sap who got between him and his objective.

What did Foggy know? Matt could practice restraint. Sometimes.

“Thank you for the assistance,” he said through smiling teeth.

A pause, a heartbeat accelerating, and then laughter.

“Yeah, I can tell when someone’s pissed at me!” the man managed after his moment of hysterics. “Sorry if I offended you, buddy.”

“Matt,” Matt said bluntly.

“What?” Bland confusion.

“My name. It’s Matt Murdock,” he said again. “Not ‘buddy.’”

The man chuckled again. He was odd. Most people would be sputtering and trying to get away by this point. But this man just laughed and held out his hand.

“Clint Barton,” he replied. “Nice to meet you, Matt. Oh… uh, I just offered you my hand to shake.”

Eyebrow raising in surprise, Matt contemplated the man before him. He seemed nice enough, if a bit strange. He was older, maybe forty or forty-five. Matt guessed him to be about the same height, an inch taller at most, but more solidly built. Most of his power seemed to be in his arms.

Giving a mental shrug, Matt released his white-knuckled grip on the cane and held out his hand. Clint adjusted and clasped his hand firmly. His hands were calloused and hard, especially around the fingers. An archer.

An _archer_.

“Now I suppose you’ll tell me you totally had that guy,” Clint teased.

The man had no sense of boundaries. He was a complete asshole.

Matt kind of liked him.

“Believe it or not, I’m not an idiot,” he offered, reclaiming his hand and switching the cane from his left hand to his right. “I have taken self-defense. But sometimes it’s better just to let them take a wallet rather than risk having your throat cut open.” He paused. Then, because he could, he added, “But yeah. I totally had that guy.”

Clint laughed again.

“So, you live around here?” he asked. “I can walk you home.”

“Far be it from me to turn him down when Hawkeye offers to take me home,” Matt retorted.

Features were difficult to discern, but Matt was guessing by the sound of Clint’s breathless and gaping silence that the other man’s jaw had dropped. While he dwelled on that, Matt reached out, fingers bumping lightly into the man’s arm and quickly correcting, shifting to stand at Clint’s right and grasp the leather of his jacket sleeve. The man watched him through all of this, silent and assessing but not rejecting the action.

“How the _hell_ did you know that?” Clint asked, moving when Matt resumed his path.

“Not a lot of Clint Bartons in the neighborhood,” he said. The lie of it was in the name. Matt had never known it.

“Huh. I guess I never knew people knew much about me.”

“Bow and arrows, right?” Matt sought answers he already knew.

“…Right. And you’re Matt Murdock, blind psychic?”

“Defense attorney,” he retorted. “I’ve got a business card in my wallet. Feel free to call if you ever need representation.”

“Oh, my god! A _lawyer!_ ”

The lament was incredible. Matt laughed until he could hardly breathe.

When they reached his apartment building, he did give Clint his business card.

“Nelson and Murdock,” Clint read. “See you around, Murdock. With the way Stark goes through lawsuits, maybe I’ll have a use for this.”

“I’m not sure I’m in Stark’s league,” Matt demurred. “But if you know anyone else, my partner and I make a point of defending those who deserve it.”

Clint was quiet for a moment before humming his agreement.

“See you around, Matt.”

“Thank you for the assist, Mr. Barton.”

Clint snorted and turned, arm swinging up as he went. To Matt’s utter delight, he called out over his shoulder, “I’m waving good-bye in a dramatic fashion as I walk away!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Involuntary urination, though not any major character.


	3. Iron Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt really was just trying to get out of the way...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think any warnings apply for this chapter.

These invasions were happening more and more now that the Avengers were a thing. First it was aliens. Then, it was some psychotic artificial intelligence set loose across the internet. Now, there were giant robots in New York. There were large, ground shaking metal monsters stomping down 48th street, taking out everything in their path.

This was not anything Matt was equipped to handle.

He had just returned from the gym when he heard them. Baffled by the sound, he had snatched up his knit cap and run for the roof. He knew he looked ridiculous in tennis shoes, sweatpants and a hoodie, but he was not out to win any fashion awards. And if he went nowhere, no one would think twice at his wearing of the hat. It was a bit cool outside.

The robots were huge—taller than his apartment building, easily. There were two of them, and they seemed to be equipped with some sort of laser weapon. He could hear the sizzle crackle of it taking out pavement and street lights.

This was not his fight. The best he could do was stay out of their way and help others do the same. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was no good against anything of that size. It had been a long time since he had felt so useless.

Amidst the screaming and the lasers and crumbling brick walls, there was another sound. Matt cocked his head, listening closely, and heard it again. It was coming from Midtown, and it was loud. It whined and hummed with a thousand intricate pieces working in perfect harmony.

Iron Man. And behind him, there was a jet.

The Avengers were coming. That meant more property damage, but they would probably be able to minimize the loss of life.

Matt supposed he should go back inside, hide away until it was over. There would be a lot of looting and theft tonight. There always was after this kind of disaster. Matt was a good deterrent for these petty crimes.

He strained to hear beyond the roar of jet engines and the high pressure punching whine of Iron Man’s propulsion system. It would be good to know if the two robots were the extent of this latest assault on his city. Or if there was a mastermind behind them who could be tracked and stopped.

“ _…Widow, you get the people off the streets._ ” A male voice. Strong, confident, accustomed to being in command.

“ _On it, Cap. Clint?_ ” A woman’s voice, husky and calm.

“ _I think I can keep their attention for a bit until Stark and Thor knock them down._ ” Clint sounded odd. Tinny. Matt smirked as he recognized Hawkeye’s voice. It faded a moment later when he heard, “ _Stark, you’re leading them the wrong way. I thought we agreed to have them head toward mi—Jesus, there’s a guy on the roof right in your path! Move, Stark!_ ”

He could not hear Stark’s response. He could hear Iron Man’s approach, and it occurred to him that _he_ was the guy on the roof Clint was worried about. Matt was on the roof, not far from the giant robots, and Iron Man was headed his way. Those robots were focused on Stark, and the asshole was headed right toward him.

Retreating inside was not going to save the building. He needed to get away from it entirely. The nearest building was a bit of a leap, but there was a fire escape on the other side. If he jumped at the right point and missed the edge, he could still make the fire escape. It would hurt, but he would survive.

Brick and mortar exploded, dust flooding the air, momentarily throwing his senses off. The world softened, distant objects suddenly muffled and gone. Shit. It didn’t matter! He still knew where the edge of the building was and the position of the other.

He took off running. Four seconds to the edge.

The whine of Iron Man’s propulsion system was getting closer. Too close for comfort. He was going to lead that monstrosity right here. Right to Matt’s _home_.

Three seconds to the edge.

Two.

Metal hands grabbed him from behind, and Matt was airborne before he was ready. The air left his lungs in a rush as his speed went from a sprint to out-of-control train in an instant. He might have shouted.

“Hold on.”

The order was an odd mix of mechanical and human, and so very Stark. This man lived in a world of his own making. He had no idea what it took to live among the masses, penniless and tired. It also apparently never occurred to him that most people could not handle flying unprotected at great speeds. Nor was there anything for Matt to _hold onto_. It was all he could do to try to grip the smooth metal of Iron Man’s arm and try not to get sick at their erratic path over the streets of New York.

He heard the next impact an instant before he felt it. They went from flying wildly over the city to spiraling out of control toward the ground. Matt cursed the hero for having grabbed him. He would have been much better off escaping on his own. Now he was going to die crushed between a suit of armor and concrete.

How was this his life?

They were not made a smear on the pavement. No, it was much worse. Matt smelled the water too late and gulped a desperate breath of air that was cut short as they plunged into the Hudson.

Matt was not a fan of swimming, in general. Public pools were awful, filled with the nose tingling scent of too much chlorine, and bombarded his skin with the feel a hundred bodies squirming their way through the water around him. The river was not crowded, but Matt was instantly swamped with the scent and taste of chemicals, fish and rot. Sounds became muted and echoing. Iron Man’s grip had loosened, and Matt slipped free, foot kicking off a metal torso as he fought his way toward what he hoped was the surface.

Pressure built in his ears and lungs. He felt the suction of water displacement beneath him. Iron Man was moving.

He broke surface a moment later, coughing and spitting foul water and flailing instinctively until the panic settled, and he started treading water. Whatever Iron Man had hoped to accomplish by grabbing him, Matt was not particularly grateful. He consoled himself with a vindictive fantasy of putting his fist in the man’s stupid wealthy face.

Water sprayed down on him as Iron Man shot out of the river and hovered overhead, the low-pressure roar of his engines battering at Matt’s ears.

“I’m going to draw them away. Get to cover and stay off of buildings in an invasion.”

Matt yelped and frantically covered his ears, dunking himself beneath the water’s surface again when the armor’s engines powered up and punched the air. The initial blow of it was awful. For once, Matt was glad for the muffling effect of the water. Just as grateful as he was for the sounds of lasers and war-like battle.

It made it a hell of a lot easier to figure out which direction he needed to be swimming.

The battle was over by the time he crawled back up the steps of his building’s fire escape and into his apartment. He was not hurt, but he was drenched and filthy, and his phone was ruined. It was a good thing he had purchased the insurance on the thing.

Hopefully Foggy would not mind going with him to the store to help him get a new phone set up properly.

 


	4. Thor and the Hulk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New Years Eve is hell. Having friends helps. Thor helps too. Sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is meant to be comedic, but just in case, I threw a couple warnings at the end.

“If I ever go to San Francisco, I am taking you with me.”

Karen’s confused laughter washed over him, and Matt let it wrap him in its comforting haze. He was too drunk for this conversation—too drunk for anything, really—all of them were. It was the only thing which made this tolerable.

There were two days of the year when Matt absolutely despised being in New York, and this was one of them. (Okay, Matt had to admit the week leading up to the Fourth of July and then the one following put him in sensory hell, random pops of fireworks confusing his senses until all he wanted to do was scream at the world to stop exploding. No one much liked being around him during these times.) New Year’s Eve was a disaster all of its own, surrounding him with too much excitement, alcohol, and the roar of a rock concert mob.

Josie’s was probably the safest place to be right now.

“Because… because he’s like a dog, see?” Foggy was _definitely_ too drunk to be talking, but Matt just laughed and failed utterly at being offended. “Like… super sensitive to the world. So I can be prepared. And I won’t have to wait for The Rock to come save me.”

“The—the wh-who?” He giggled his way through that one. Matt needed another drink, because that made no sense. Obviously more alcohol would help it stop mattering. And the concert with its thousands of people ten blocks away would stop clamoring through his skull.

“Dwayne Johnson? San Andreas? You know, film references are better with people who actually see films.”

“Oh! That’s the one with… with the earthquake!” Karen exclaimed. “Matt, can you sense when earthquakes are coming?”

He probably could. He had never had the opportunity to try, nor did he know what an impending earthquake felt like. Given the situation, Matt supposed he would be like one of those madly barking dogs. He would be confused and know something was wrong, but he would not be able to express what was coming.

It was better not to think too hard about it. There were so many sirens screaming around the city, and it hurt to hear them. Better just to focus on his surroundings. The television was almost in sync with the roar in Times Square.

“New game!” Foggy announced. “There’s a lot of strangers in here. Let’s hear their stories. Matt, you’re awesome at this game!”

He really was.

“Guy in the corner,” Foggy said. “He’s… okay, that’s Alberto, but he’s alone. In the doghouse with the wife.”

“Wife’s in Connecticut,” Matt corrected. “With her aunt. She was diagnosed with Lupus last month.”

“That’s awful!” Karen moaned.

“Way to bring the room down, buddy.”

“He told the entire street about it last week, Foggy.” Matt should not be giggling about this. It was not funny. Except the tragedy of it kind of was. “Wait—wait. What about the guys at the end of the bar? Two of them. They still there?”

They were new. Matt had heard them come in, had been baffled by the pair before the alcohol had chased away the oddness of their foreign smells. Storms and lightning and chemicals and _cancer_ , but neither of them was sick. How could someone smell like such a disease and be so completely healthy?

Matt fiddled with his beer, picking at the soggy label.

“Tall and handsome with quiet and nerdy over there?” Foggy snickered. “Oh—oh! Old school ground buddies. Calvin Klein model is in town for the holiday, and they’re out to revisit old times!”

It was so far from what was likely that both Karen and Matt were laughing helplessly. The description was not even funny. Matt knew it was not, but right at the moment? Everything was hilarious.

Except his bladder. His bladder was not funny, and it was crying for mercy.

“I’ll be—I’ll just be—” He reeled, caught the table with a hand, and snickered at his own loss of control.

“Matt!” Karen was alarmed but laughing. She caught his arm, put his cane in his hand, and nudged him toward the back. “Hurry up! It’s five minutes to!”

The bathroom was empty. It usually was. No one really wanted to venture into the den of filth in this dive of a bar. Matt was sure it looked horrible. It certainly smelled it, but the smells were that of ammonia and artificial lemon scent. This bathroom might look dingy and stained, but his nose told him it was cleaner than the one in Foggy’s apartment, and he was glad for the privacy. Public restrooms were never fun.

The bar was amping up for the countdown. Matt could hear snippets of two dozen conversations in what was usually a relatively empty little place. Too many people, too much noise, but it was better than hiding out alone in his apartment. He would much rather be with Foggy and Karen than huddled on his bed with his hands clamped over his ears, wishing the world would shut up, just for a moment.

He had done that once in law school, and Foggy had never let him hear the end of it. Not that Foggy really knew at the time. He had just returned from his winter break, discovered that Matt had never left, and appointed himself as caretaker. Matt was still not sure which was worse—Christmas alone or Christmas in the chaos which was the Nelson household. It hurt, going there, but in the best way.

He really was too drunk. Now he was getting maudlin in the men’s restroom.

Zipping up, he stumbled to the sink to wash his hands. The countdown was getting close. He could hear the news announcers calling out the two-minute mark.

He stopped at the bar on his way back to Foggy and Karen. Josie was fast. She got him a new beer as the clock ticked down past the one-minute mark.

“And then we count the seconds and drink and have revelries!”

The remark was odd, spoken in a deep, slightly accented voice. It was the man who smelled of the minutes before a summer storm, the one who was huge—like Fisk, but athletic and broad rather than massive and padded muscle-bulk. His friend was smaller and quieter, trying to hide himself in the corner with the big guy between him and the world.

Matt understood the feeling.

“That’s the general idea, yeah,” the smaller guy sighed.

Odd to be explaining the concept of New Year’s celebrations to anyone, but Matt was not going to judge. He offered Josie his best smile when she tapped the back of his hand with the bottle.

“Save it for the pretty girls, Murdock,” she scoffed.

“I have it on good authority you’re the prettiest girl in here, Josie,” Matt shot back, just to hear that deprecatory snort and the little flutter of an otherwise jaded heart. The woman was sarcastic and irritable most of the time. It was nice to know he could break through that ice once in a while. Foggy was better at it, but Matt tried. Blind jokes usually were the best route. Everyone liked a guy who could make fun of himself.

“Matt! Matt!” Foggy’s voice, over the din as the clock hit thirty seconds and the countdown began. “Matt, you’re—!”

He and Karen were laughing too hard for Foggy to spit out the rest of the words. Matt stabilized against the bar, bumped back against the big guy who was asking something foolish of his long-suffering friend. It was disconcerting. His ears were ringing—too much alcohol. He was never going to make it back to his apartment without some direction.

The countdown was to ten. Jesus. He should not be drinking. Matt set the beer bottle down carefully. Even then it wobbled, and he had to scramble for it to remain upright. His balance was shot. His senses were out of whack, exploding in a cacophony of dissonant voices counting, the city belting in a mix of sober and varying levels of drunkenness. It was like the worst choir on the planet, incapable of carrying a solid tune or keeping rhythm with each other. Voices jumped ahead, lagged behind, and he could not tell who was right.

“ _Three!… Two!… One!… HAPPY NEW YEAR!_ ”

He remembered why he hated this. No amount of alcohol could drown this out.

Big hands caught his shoulders. Matt jerked, failed utterly to resist the strength of that grasp, heard an aborted cry from a now-familiar voice, “ _Thor! Wait!_ ”

There was a mouth on his.

Lightning flooded his senses. The man was huge and impossibly strong, and Matt was caught in the mind-numbed shock of being completely incapable of understanding what was happening to him. The world went blessedly quiet, narrowing down to the solid heartbeat of the man in front of him, the long hair sliding across unfamiliar fabric—something like silk, maybe? Or leather? Vastly different, but the smell was wrong for both—and then hearty laughter as the unexpected kiss ended.

Matt fumbled for comprehension. The man released him, and that wasn’t good. His head was spinning, the world muted, as if he were underwater.

A hand caught his flailing arm.

“My sincerest apologies,” the big man’s voice filtered through the confusion. “Are you all right?”

“I—” People were laughing around him, cheering and completely absorbed in their own good humors to be at all aware of Matt and his current crisis. He wanted to shake his head. He wanted the world to clear itself again. Matt knew better. His head was already beginning to hurt. Water would be best. “What—?”

“I was informed it was tradition to kiss a stranger on conclusion of the countdown,” the man continued. “Dr. Banner just now told me this is outdated information. I hope you can forgive my ignorance.”

Matt wondered if it would be unseemly to wrap himself around this giant of an insane man and bury himself in the impossible symphony of a drumming heartbeat, powerful lungs breathing, and ozone. The body odor was a bit strong beneath this, but he could tolerate a little sweat. The guy still smelled better than half of the people in the bar.

“Ah… yeah,” he managed. “I think… yeah. I’m fine. It’s fine. You’re…”

Wind and lightning and clouds and hail. Matt managed not to say anything along these lines. Of course, his current state of inebriation insisted he say something.

“…really big.”

The man laughed. Matt wondered if it was possible to be in love with laughter.

“I think we should go,” the quiet man said. Nerdy, Foggy had said. Dr. Banner, the big guy had called him. And Dr. Banner had called the big guy…

Matt fought for balance when the man agreed with Banner and took a step back. He jumped when those big hands found his shoulders again, a little panicked part of his brain wondering if he was about to be subjected to another beard-burning kiss. The silence had been nice, but now he was freaking out just a bit.

“My friend, perhaps you should sit. Can you tell me how many fingers I am holding up?”

There was no stopping the laughter now. Matt knew it was ridiculous, knew the sound verged on hysterical giggling, but he did not care. He was drunk. He was being manhandled by the biggest guy around since Fisk. _Thor_ had kissed him. And now a Norse God was waving two fingers in front of his face.

“He’s blind, Thor.”

“What?”

“See the sunglasses and white cane?” Dr. Banner murmured. “He’s blind. He can’t see you.”

“Ah…” Thor looked back to Matt, all good humor and genuine interest. “Again, forgive me.”

“Hard not to,” Matt managed. He waved halfheartedly toward where Karen and Foggy were staring dumbly at them. “My—my friends. Can you just… if you’re going that way anyway.”

“Of course.”

Thor had to be the most ingenuous person Matt had ever had the pleasure of kissing. It was a thought that set him to giggling all over again. Thank god Thor was strong enough to carry his weight, because he was laughing too hard to be bothered with walking in a straight line. He was just grateful when Foggy met them and took over. It was even funnier when he heard Foggy’s upset breathing and rapid heartbeat and felt all the repressed anger in the tension of his body.

“That—that is—technically—that was assault!”

“Foggy. Foggy!” Matt was too far gone for this debate. He giggled, reined it in, and giggled out again. “Foggy, no. Foggy, it’s okay. It was just a misunderstanding.”

“It was not my intention to—”

“That’s what you get for talking to Clint,” Banner grumbled, and Matt laughed even harder. Because of course it was Clint. Clint Barton, who had insulted him and then so easily made it up to him by joking and walking him home. Fuck these Avengers.

“Matt, you are so beyond the ability to consent right now, it’s not even funny!” Clearly Foggy was sobering up if he was able to string that thought into a coherent verbal statement.

“Get him home safely,” Banner suggested.

“Yeah, and get your over-sexed buddy home too!”

Okay, so maybe Foggy wasn’t quite up for the debate. Matt giggled again, resting his forehead on Foggy’s shoulder because that was so much better than the continual spinning of the room. That, and Foggy’s arm around his back was almost like a hug, and Matt was just shameless enough to let his friend think he needed this just for the physical support.

Later, when Foggy deposited Matt on his couch—Foggy had the best sofa, honestly—Matt reached up to pat at his face clumsily.

“Protecting my honor from the likes of Thor,” he proclaimed. “You’re the real hero here.”

“ _THOR?!_ ”

“His nerdy friend was the Hulk!” Matt cheerily added.

“Oh, my _GOD_ ,” Foggy moaned. “That’s it, Matt. When we’re sober, we’re discussing this. This… this keeping secrets thing. You let me— _Thor?!_ ”

Matt laughed and threw his arms up, halfheartedly blocking the thump of a pillow over his head.

* * *

They didn’t have that discussion. Foggy had his revenge in speaking loudly and forcefully each time he was anywhere near Matt the next morning. Matt moaned and tried to smother himself with his borrowed pillow.

Later. Much later, when Matt’s headache had dulled to a jackhammer in his brain, Foggy did bring it up.

“So, what was it like kissing a god?”

Seriously considering methods of knocking himself unconscious, Matt did not bother lifting his head from Foggy’s kitchen table. Foggy laughed when he managed to bring up a hand to flip his friend the bird.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Sensory issues (this is Matt, after all). Non-consensual kissing (not with intent to harm or in any form rape-y, but still...).
> 
> Also, I mean no disrespect when it comes to chronic and severe illness.


	5. Black Widow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was one-hundred percent Foggy's fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, I am not certain this quite works. Timeline: between seasons 1 & 2 for Daredevil. Again, sort of timeline nebulous for Avengers. Pre-Captain America: Civil War.
> 
> Also, ignore any and all specifics about location and layout. I've never been to New York, and I avoid places like this for the fact that crowds are horrific things which should be avoided at all costs.
> 
> Chapter specific warnings at the end notes.

It took a lot, these days, to stop Matt in his tracks. Usually it was a broken limb. Sometimes, on really bad days, it was the slithering thing inside him which wrapped itself around his lungs and filled his body with lead and refused to release. Neither had happened in a very long time. He had not broken a bone which stopped him from moving since he was a teenager, and the life-ceasing weight had not fallen so heavily upon him since he had cried himself out into Karen’s shoulder those few months ago.

His senses were under control. Sure, there were bad days. Sometimes there were so many people hurting in the night that even Daredevil was brought up short, at a loss for which way to turn first. There were stupid moments when the fire alarm went off in their office building, and he had to be all but dragged down the steps like a whimpering dog.

That had been embarrassing.

He blamed Foggy for this latest disaster. This was Karen’s idea, but this was still entirely Foggy’s fault. Matt was with Karen, but Karen was never capable of talking Matt into doing anything he was not already predisposed to do.

Like going to a P!nk concert.

Karen had won tickets through some radio show, and Foggy already had a date with Marci that night. By default, Matt was the one she had begged and pleaded to join her on this hellish venture. Since, as a general rule (or a law of happy existence), Matt tended to avoid large crowds and overly loud anything, he had tried to politely decline. And yet, somehow, through the joint prodding of Foggy and Karen, Matt found himself in the fifth row in the biggest concert hall in New York City.

He was going to suffocate and then go deaf.

Between the smells of body sprays, perfumes, shampoos, soaps, deodorants, a severe _lack_ of deodorant, pizza, pretzels, nachos, hot dogs, ice cream, beer, soda—oh, _God_ , he was not sure which way to turn.

He had an iron grip on Karen’s arm the entire way to their seats, but she was too excited to notice.

“It’s P!nk, Matt!” she had said when he tried again to weasel his way out of this event that afternoon in the cab, “ _Everyone_ likes P!nk. And it’s a concert. You don’t really have to see what’s going on to enjoy it.”

Seeing and being deaf (or maybe completely insensate) would have been a vast improvement. Everything was jittery, anxious— _screaming—_ and a thousand racing heartbeats— _they’re all screaming_ —a pounding bass and enthusiastic shouting of the preshow announcers through a goddamned microphone.

He was going to throw up.

Karen noticed when he tried to leave. He would have missed her words had she not caught his sleeve and shouted at him. His concentration was shot. There was no making sense of what words she had offered, not when the girl behind him let loose with an ear-splitting shriek and jumped up and down excitedly.

“ _Bathroom!_ ” he hollered, hoping it was good enough.

It was. Karen released his arm and shouted back. He was pretty sure it was something simple, along the lines of _okay_. She did not try to escort him to the restroom, which was a relief. Karen knew he could handle himself, was accustomed to him going out on his own to places he had never officially been. No need to tell her this was not one of those situations. He probably should have an escort. But that would take her from the concert she was clearly enjoying, and he was not that person either.

Identifying an individual body was impossible in this place. He felt waves of writhing heat pressing in around him, winced at the acrid sense of air striking his exposed skin, the smells of human bodies and deep-set food and grease. This place would always smell of their terrible food and human sweat and tears. It was awful and disorienting.

He somehow managed to find his way clear of the stadium seating. The air cleared a bit, though the terrible food smells increased. The noise level dropped a few decibels. His world wavered back into some semblance of focus, which was disrupted each time the crowd in the stadium roared.

Matt did not find the bathroom in time to escape the first chords of the concert. His world went a vivid, hot yellow-white as the audience screamed in one cacophonous sound. The music was loud—horrifically so if he could make no sense of other sounds this far out—and he was stranded.

By the time he found a wall, he was completely lost. There would be no getting back to Karen now. All he could do was plant himself and hope she could eventually find him when this debacle ended.

“Mind if I join you?”

The words were surprisingly clear, and they jolted into him like a fist to the face. It was a good thing Matt was sitting. His knee-jerk reaction was to recoil or lash out, but he only managed to bump back into the wall, knocking away what little breath he had.

“Sorry to startle you.” The voice was female but low. Husky. Matt flattened his hands on the floor, grounding himself in feeling the vibrations of the music shivering through the concrete, in the grit left behind by people’s shoes. Probably for the best he did not think too hard on that. He tilted his head to the left, in the vague direction of where that voice had originated. “Do you mind?”

Too much effort was required to figure out why this woman was asking for his opinion on anything. He just shrugged and drew his knees up, planting his feet flat, and hoped he was not in anyone’s way. The last thing he needed was to trip someone up and end this night with some asshole yelling at him for not watching where he put his feet.

“It’s a free country.”

“So they like to say.” She was staring at him. He could not hear her beyond the noise coming from the stadium, but she was a presence of heat against the cool of the concrete beneath and behind them. She was not wearing perfume, which was both a blessing and a curse. He could have stood to smell something pleasant other than the fried food that pressed down on him from every side. However, it did seem like all the scents he had encountered so far (Karen excluded) had been unpleasant to the point where he wanted to sneeze repeatedly to get them out of his sinuses. “My friends convinced me to come. I’m not generally a fan of big events. Plus, I’m not a P!nk fan.”

He managed an affirming grunt. A careful breath through his mouth provided him with more information. The woman was wearing scentless deodorant, and she wore very little in the way of cosmetics. If he focused harder, he could hear her heart, a slow and steady counter beat to the music. Her breath slid in and out of her lungs easily. Healthy. She was holding a bottle of beer—Budweiser—nearly full, as though she had recently gotten it or simply not taken a drink.

“My name is Natalie. Rushman.” There was the barest of pauses in that statement, just before the name.

Why would a woman approach him and then promptly give him a false name? Matt lifted his head, grateful for the distraction and curious about the brief hesitation in her words. Her heartrate was calm. She could have defeated a polygraph with that easy beat. But people did not hesitate, not even for that briefest of instants, when providing their own names. She might have been leery of giving a strange man her name, but if that was her concern, why had she approached him in the first place?

Interesting.

“John,” he offered. Then, just to see her reaction, he made it worse by adding, “Smith.”

She paused.

“Really.”

He smiled. It felt a little ragged around the edges, his senses still jangling from the noise and vibrations which seemed as though they would shake the building apart. Still, it was nice to have a focal point. Even if it was a liar.

“You don’t like P!nk,” he said, changing the subject. “I was informed earlier that _everyone_ loves P!nk. Was my friend wrong?”

“No one can be right all the time,” the woman observed. “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself after all.”

That was because a song on the radio and the blinding noise of a concert in a sold-out stadium which housed twenty-thousand screaming men and women were two very different things.

“I don’t like crowds,” he countered.

Someone walked past them. Matt had not noticed them until the breeze set him to shivering. He gripped his cane, the folded edges digging into his palms. The sharp double crack of a snare drum nearly had him lunging to his feet. His whole body lurched at the sound before his mind caught up, identified the sound as not quite the same as a gunshot, and told him to knock the dramatics down a notch.

There was a warm pressure against his arm.

Matt homed in on the light point of contact. It was the woman’s arm, her silk-clad shoulder bumping into his sleeve. Her body was warm—warmer than his at the moment—and comfortably so. Her heartbeat was steady and calm, and her arm moved with each inhalation.

It took a conscious effort to match his breathing to hers. Matt was aware of how visible his agitation was, and it embarrassed him. The disconcertion slowed his recovery time some. In the end, it still only took a few minutes to dial back from ragged panting to measured breaths. He was determined not to have a panic attack in this awful place.

He was going to strangle Foggy when they got home.

The woman was speaking. She likely had been for several minutes.

“I-I’m sorry… What—what did you say?”

“Nothing worth repeating.” Her shoulder lifted in the faintest of shrugs. “You just seemed like you could use the distraction.”

Matt chuckled wryly.

“What about you?” He forced his attention back to her, trying to drown out the concert and the screaming with her regular heartbeat and steady in-and-out of air.

She smelled of gunpowder.

“You must hate this if you’re picking random men out of the crowd and striking up conversations.”

“Not so random—you do stand out.”

From most people that would sound like a bad pickup. This woman stated it like a matter of fact. Nothing in her scent or bearing suggested she was at all interested in him physically. For that, Matt was desperately glad. Battling a come on while trying to work out her angle would have been twice as difficult with as divided as his attention currently was.

“Mm, yes,” he smirked. “The blind guy hiding in the corner.”

“You’re blind?”

He laughed. The lie in the name drop had been subtle. This one had been blatantly false ingenuousness. A child could have picked it out.

It felt good to laugh. Some of the pressure released from around his chest. The weight was still there, the noise still sucking at the air, but he was able to expand his lungs fully.

“So they tell me.”

“You’re also not in a corner,” the woman told him. “You are about ten paces from the restroom and another fifteen from the nearest food vendor.”

It was nice to know he had been headed in the right direction at least. That urge to vomit had passed, though, so he felt no immediate need to venture to the restroom. As long as he did not have to go back into the stadium with all those shrieking fans, he would be just fine.

Mostly.

“The food, if it could be called that, I can smell,” he said rather than address any of this. “Turn of phrase.”

“Mm, well, just so you’re not hopelessly lost in this hellhole.”

The irritation he normally would have felt by that remark was washed away in her casual disdain for the stadium. In this instance, he truly was lost. There was little chance of him finding his way back to Karen without assistance—though he was loath to go back inside—it rankled when people assumed he could not find his way around on the simple knowledge that he could not see his surroundings. He was plenty capable of taking care of himself. No matter what Foggy might say.

That did not make this woman immune to his usual reply.

“I’m sure someone would be happy to do their part if I asked for help.”

“You going to throw that ridiculous alias at them when you do?”

He laughed again.

“I don’t know,” he shot her a sharp grin. “Would you give me your real name if I asked _you_?”

The steady beat of her heart faltered. She had not expected him to call her on it. Matt could not help the triumph he felt in getting one step up on this woman, petty though it may be. Considering the disaster his senses were at the moment, anything was an accomplishment.

“Your alias was more convincing than mine, I’ll admit,” he soothed. “Though why you even bothered is curious. It’s not like I could provide a useable description.”

Slowly. Slowly his focus was returning. Foggy would be upset if he knew how much playing these games helped Matt. There were so many reasons he never wanted to tell Foggy about what he could do.

“I’m Matt, by the way.”

“You’re one of the lawyers who took down Wilson Fisk.”

Fisk’s takedown had been headlining news. But Daredevil had been given front billing, while Nelson and Murdock had been a passing mention in the side notes. For the most part, it was only the local population who recognized the firm’s name. Even then, Matt was a common name, and there had been no pictures of Foggy or Matt in the paper. (Well, there had been one of _Matt_ , but he doubted this woman knew that.)

“You’re either from Hell’s Kitchen, or you do a lot of research outside of reading the newspaper,” Matt observed.

“I like knowing things,” she said, body shifting slightly. She had shrugged. A single shoulder. Matt should not be feeling so proud that he figured this out at this point in his life. Her heartbeat picked up again. Nerves, he guessed. Trying to use her heart rate as a method for reading lies would not be good unless he spent a lot more time around this woman. When next she spoke, he realized why she was feeling uneasy. “Natasha.”

A relatively common name, but he suspected this was the real deal.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Natasha.”

“Likewise, Mr. Murdock.”

“No fair using last names when I can’t reciprocate,” Matt chided. “Makes me feel like a misogynistic asshole.”

“Turnabout is fair play,” Natasha sounded amused. “I made a lot of assumptions when I noticed you were blind.”

“Matt,” he prompted. He ignored her self-deprecation. If he spent much time catering to people’s feelings on how to treat the blind guy, he would never get anything done.

“Matt,” she echoed, laughing softly. “Lawyer. I might have known. You’re a bloodhound, aren’t you?”

She really had no idea. Matt laughed again and pondered her voice. It was low for a woman. Husky. He would not have expected it from a woman of her petite stature. Not that it was unpleasant. She had probably trained herself to deepen her voice and speak with that level competence.

Matt could already hear Foggy’s voice in his head, complaining about how he always found the beautiful woman in the room. Beautiful women with questionable character. Given that she had started out by lying to him, Foggy’s theory was not yet proven incorrect. Of course, Matt would need someone sighted to tell him of Natasha’s level of attractiveness, but he was guessing she was quite pretty. At the very least, she was confident, and that was always sexy.

Matt also recognized the voice.

He had heard it over a radio from a rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen.

 _Black Widow_.

No wonder she had lied to him.

All of this begged the question: what the hell was the Black Widow doing at a P!nk concert in Manhattan? And why had she bothered to stop to sit with some upstart lawyer— _blind man_ —in the process?

“If you have someplace else to be, I promise I don’t actually require a baby-sitter,” he cautiously offered.

She was quiet for longer than was normal. Matt cursed his own inability to lie well. He had jumped topics and moods too quickly with his realization. Natasha Romanov was a spy who made her career in observing people. She must have noticed.

_“…Matt? Matt?!”_

 He turned toward the familiar voice. It was coming from a fair distance. Matt had not realized how far he had ventured from the gate. Karen was worried. He could hear her stopping people, asking after him, calling out when that failed.

_“About my height. Dark hair. Round sunglasses. He’s blind. His name is Matt Murdock… Matt?!”_

“My friend is probably looking for me,” he announced, shoving to his feet.

He braced a hand against the wall, noting with no small amount of relief that the music had stopped. Now there was only the mass of people to navigate. As long as they were not screaming hysterically, he could manage it. Also, now that he had homed in on Karen’s voice, he would be able to track her through the crowd. It would be better if he had her heartbeat and scent, but a voice would have to suffice. As long as she kept talking.

He blamed his focus on Karen when he reacted too quickly to Natasha reaching out to steady him. It was an innocent gesture, even for the notorious Black Widow. Matt jerked away before she came anywhere close.

Matt opened his cane, a miserable attempt at proving his recoil had been nothing more than a desire to get back to Karen quickly.

Natasha did not say anything. She did not have to. Matt could hear the knowledge in the sudden skip-beat of her heart.

“ _Karen… Karen… Karen_.”

The sound of his phone chanting startled him again. His jumpiness this evening was getting to be absurd. Matt tried to ignore the sense of Natasha’s eyes on him as he fumbled into his jacket pocket for his phone and clumsily swiped at the screen. Technology was useful, but he really hated touch-screen phones.

“ _Oh, my god, Matt!_ ” Karen did not even wait for him to speak. “ _You just disappeared! What the hell?!_ ”

“I’m by the bathroom, Karen.” He tilted his head toward Natasha and muttered, “I _am_ by the bathroom, right?”

“The women’s,” she said wryly.

He sighed. This was not his night. It was a good thing he did not actually need the facilities at the moment. Going on a hunt for the men’s room in a massive stadium was not his idea of a good time.

“I’m by the wall—” She was getting closer. He could hear her panicked breathing start to settle now that she was in contact with him. He lifted his arm, waving the phone in the general direction of where he knew her to be. When he brought the phone back to his ear, he asked, “Did you see?”

“Oh, you giant moron!” Karen griped. “I see you. You know you’re by the ladies’ room, right?”

“I’ve been informed.”

And then she was there, her arms around him in a manner he generally did not tolerate without warning—except when it was Foggy. He stood stiffly in the embrace, allowing it because her heartrate was all over the place. Karen was upset. She proved it when she finally pulled away and smacked him hard on the arm.

“You jerk!” she snapped. “You just _left_ me in there!”

“Ah…” He had hoped that perhaps Natasha might lend him a little backup, but it seemed that dealing with anxious friends went beyond her call of duty. She was already gone, slipping through the crowd and disappearing from his senses in seconds. “I wasn’t feeling too great. Sorry.”

“You should have said something!” Karen snapped. “You look like hell, Matt. You didn’t throw up, did you? Because you look a bit like you might yet.”

“No, no. I’m fine.” The lie slid so easily off his tongue. He swallowed down his nausea, rising in response to the anxiety at the thought of going back to that hellish space of too much movement, too many smells, and far too much noise. He offered anyway. “We—we can go back.”

He could not see it, but there was no mistaking that pointed moment of silence. She was probably looking at him like he had lost his mind. She was not far off, if they were being honest.

“Matt, you should have said if you were sick,” Karen scolded him. “Come on.”

“Wh-what? Where—?” She had hooked his hand around her elbow and clung tightly to it as she started weaving through the crowd. “Karen, people aren’t leaving. It’s not over.”

“It is for us,” Karen said firmly. “Think you can handle the subway?”

Absolutely not. He would definitely puke then. That was a side of himself that he did not want Karen to see.

“I… maybe I could spring for a cab?” he offered hopefully.

She sighed and gripped his fingers tightly.

“I’ll pay,” she said. “And you can pay me back by telling me about the bombshell you were spending your time with while I was worried about where you had gone.”

Matt opened his mouth to protest. He closed it again. It really was not worth arguing. If only Foggy were here. Then again, Foggy would probably just make more accusations about Matt Murdock and beautiful women with questionable character.

From what he had heard, Black Widow embodied the description.

“Fine,” he grumbled. And then, because he might have been a lawyer, but he was an _idiot_ when it came to interpersonal skills, he added, “No more loud concerts?”

Karen stopped to look at him sharply. Matt really needed to learn when to keep his mouth shut. He was never going to hear the end of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Sensory overload. A brief lean toward depression. Maybe a little PTSD, though I don't really get into it. Also, it has been brought to my attention that if you suffer from emetophobia, you might be bothered by the a couple lines in this chapter. Take care!
> 
> Also, please ignore the fact that Karen didn't go with Matt when he went off on his own. It's an obvious plot device to get him alone.


End file.
